TCPALM: Lake Okeechobee pollutes St. Lucie River with 1.1 billion gallons a day

posted by Everglades Trust | 0sc
September 27, 2016

TCPALM: September 22, 2016. Written by Tyler Treadway.

With Lake Okeechobee water levels too high and rising, polluted discharges to the St. Lucie River will increase to more than 1.1 billion gallons a day, the Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday.

The new flow rate, which begins Friday, is the same amount of lake water the Corps sent to the St. Lucie in May and June. Those discharges carried a huge algae bloom in the lake into the river, causing widespread toxic algae blooms in June and July, with thick mats of foul-smelling algae in some marinas and canals.